Disclaimer: I do not own Yuffie, Vincent, Wutai, Nibelheim, Godo… list goes on In short, everything you saw in Final Fantasy VII belongs to Square Enix! One quote shamelessly nabbed from Robin Hobb's… something. I know Burrich says it. I think it might be Royal Assassin, but I'm not sure.

A/N: Well, I've been toying with this for a while, and I've decided to sorta move on a little bit. Death Defy can be considered the final chapter, and these next parts an epilogue of sorts. (Translation: Rose Flame couldn't resist the fluff-bunnies that were dancing around her shrieking "Do it! Do it!!") So, enjoy.

Elevation

The remains of the slums burned. It wasn't an attempt to purify. It wasn't an accidental blaze that had broken out in the debris. But nevertheless, atop the highest heaps of rubble, and in the valleys of mountainous piles of twisted metal, people danced and sang and rejoiced.

The sky was clear. No fiery ball of space rock loomed. The Planet was safe.

Where the Shinra building had once been, there was a large clearing of the rubble, sheared away or destroyed by the combined forces of Holy and the Lifestream in their attempts to repel Meteor. In the centre of this, quite possible all of the flammable goods left in Midgar had been dragged to form what may have been the biggest bonfire in the history of the Planet. It dwarfed the Cosmo Candle, it made the flames in Da Chao's belly look like matchsticks. It was around this that the majority of the central Midgar community was gathered, and where the members of AVALANCHE had been called for a special celebration.

Tables were laden with any and all of Midgar's produce. There were huge trestles covered with beverages – most of the alcoholic ones courtesy of Reno of the Turks and his semi-illegal underground stash. Every citizen of Midgar had contributed, their sense of community greatly enhanced in their exuberance at the defeat of Sephiroth and the destruction of Meteor.

Halfway up one of the smaller hills of rubble that surrounded the immense bonfire, Vincent Valentine appeared to care little for proceedings down below. His cape wrapped around him, the Death Penalty carefully wedged between a washing machine and the crossed supports of a charred ironing board, he sat with his legs down the slope before him, bent so that the unstable car door he was sitting on wouldn't go skidding off down the slope and take him with it. In one hand he held a crude pot metal medallion. It said simply, AVALANCHE and below that, in smaller letters, Vincent Valentine. He smiled slightly. It was, he supposed, a nice sort of token. Given the severe shortage of everything in Midgar just now, he had expected nothing.

He tucked the medallion away and looked at the pair of socks draped over his claw. Some crazy old woman had grabbed him by the claw and demanded that he take the socks. They were thick and chunky. The rainbow stripes on them were uneven and crude. You never know when you'll need a good pair of socks, the old woman had said severely. I bet you really wanted a good pair of socks while you were in that Crater. I bet it was freezing. You have those, sonny, and you make sure you get some good use out of 'em.

Vincent wondered what had surprised him more – that he was being given rainbow striped socks or that she had called him sonny. He shook his head slightly, and smiled to himself. He was glad the old woman had survived. Midgar had probably been inauspiciously lacking in sock-givers before Meteor. But the sock-givers were always the useful ones. He tucked away his socks with a faint smile, and turned his gaze to the bonfire.

There were more than a few people dancing, though by now (it was approaching midnight) many of those who had first crowded the 'floor' had relented to getting themselves very drunk at the edges of the clearing. Vincent was not the only one camped out high in the rubble-hills, but he thought, glancing around, that he was probably the only one not trying to salvage things. Or drinking. Or both at once.

Somehow, in the middle of the commotion, Vincent's eye was drawn to a particular figure. Slim, short and tanned, usually baring most of her body to the world, she was tonight weighed down by a formal kimono in olive green. Her silhouette against the flames looked tired, but as he watched, three small children ran up to her. As he watched, they attached themselves to her legs. Exclaiming and throwing her arms in the air, Yuffie dashed them off and ran away, spinning to grab at them when they came too close, in some kind of strange game. Vincent couldn't hear her, but he knew she was laughing, breathless with her love for everything and everyone, overjoyed to have the company, ecstatic to be running and spinning and dancing.

She would have been just as happy sitting in the rain, her hair plastered to her head, blinded by the droplets in her eyes and drinking the rain that she caught in her mouth. She would have been as happy dangling by the seat of her pants from Gaea's cliffs. (Well, that might have been pushing it a bit.) Vincent's eyes softened as he looked at her. "Yuffie…"

As though she had heard him, she suddenly paused in her spinning and looked around. Following some sort of sixth sense, she scanned the line of folk at the base of the rubble-hills, and then her eyes travelled upward slowly until she found the blotch of scarlet and midnight in the twisted metal. She bent to speak to the children, and they ran off through the crowd.

Vincent watched as Yuffie slid expertly through the people, lifting up her heavy skirts as she scrambled up the debris pile to get to him. When she was a few feet below him, she paused and dropped her many-layered formal kimono back down around her ankles. Her breast heaved gently as she caught her breath.

"Vinnie," she said breathlessly, cocking her head to the side, "What in Leviathan's name are you doing all the way up here?"

It was an interesting question. Vincent cocked his head at her in return, and she smiled. He shifted over on his car door as she struggled the last few feet to sit down heavily beside him. "Oof!" She said, settling herself as comfortably as possible in the heavy garments. "Well? What's eating your liver this time?"

Vincent looked across at her and lifted his shoulders in a lazy sort of shrug. "I dislike crowds." He said simply. "And I cannot see the stars from down by the bonfire."

Yuffie looked up into the sky, her face warm with simple pleasure at the company, at the bonfire, at the stars. "Yeah," she said eventually. "I see what you mean."

Vincent blinked. Had he meant anything? Perhaps she knew him better than he thought. Definitely, in fact. He looked up, leaning back slightly, and sighed softly. Yuffie glanced across and grinned at him.

"So you're up here all on your lonesome, huh?" She asked. Vincent stared at her as though to say, you're here, aren't you? and she giggled quietly. "Vinnie, you oughta come down and join the party for a while. Cait Sith and Cid want to get you drunk." She added seriously. Vincent blinked and then let out a low chuckle.

"I'll keep that in mind. For now…" He leaned back further, resting his back against a chunk of concrete. He winced and tilted his head oddly to avoid it being speared by a pipe protruding from the concrete. Yuffie's lips twitched as she watched him gaze into the sky, blood red eyes bottomless. Fathomless. She smiled.

"Well, Vinnie, I'd love to stick around and not-chat, but I have duties to attend to." She rolled her eyes at him. "Dad decided that Wutai'd make a contribution to the celebration. So I have to do the Dance of Leviathan."

Vincent frowned vaguely at the sky. "Doesn't that have two pairs?"

"Yes." Yuffie said, pouting. "Chekhov and Staniv… and me and Gorky! Dad has to preside or something. Isn't that just ridiculous? I mean, I love Gorky, and he's a nice old coot, but he can't dance at all. And you just know that he's going to mess up and… uuurgh, Vinnie, I think I'll just stay here with you after all." She flopped back against his chunk of concrete and said, "OW!" Then she sat up rubbing her head and muttering evilly under her breath about demonic pipes.

Vincent smiled. "So you are going to do the Dance of Leviathan." He said softly. He sat up. "I think that will be worth watching from up close, instead of seeing you as a matchstick from afar. I have not seen that dance in many years."

"Betcha haven't." Yuffie agreed. "So come on. Let's go find Gorky and get this show on the road."

"Oh that's not funny. That is not even funny. Why did you have to let him get to the rice wine?" Yuffie whined pathetically, looking at the snoring old man she was supposed to be dancing with. Godo looked as displeased as she did.

"There was no 'let' about it!" He muttered. "It is highly disappointing. But I cannot dance tonight. We will have to cancel the Dance of Leviathan."

Yuffie took a breath, about to whine, and paused. She continued pausing until Godo looked at her curiously. Then she said, "Wait here. I think maybe I have an idea."

Tifa pushed her way through the crowds, Marlene on her hip, dragging Cloud by the arm to the edge of the circle that had been the designated area for the Dance of Leviathan. "Ooh, look Cloud! Yuffie's going to be dancing!" She said, excited. Cloud resisted the urge to roll his eyes at Marlene, who was watching proceedings with sleepy interest, and smiled instead. He was happy to be here. He was just unhappy at other people who… were not.

Cloud shook his head to dash away the vestiges of sadness. She'd want him to be happy. So he would be.

And there was Yuffie now, face grave in the tone of the dance. She offered them neither a wink nor a smile as her eyes passed over them, but stood ten feet from her retainer Chekhov and waited silently. Behind them, two men knelt on the ground, one of them the warrior Staniv. Tifa didn't recognise the other one.

Upon the dais, Shake pounded the drum thrice to get the audience's attention properly focused. Slowly, in unison, Yuffie and Chekhov bowed. Then, as Shake's arm fell again, they whirled into movement. Somehow, though the motions themselves were minimal, Tifa saw a snaking river, a rolling ocean – the undulating coils of the Water God, Leviathan in all His majesty, was plain to see in the dance. Tifa found herself wondering if they would actually Summon the giant snake.

The men, too, were dancing, a powerful backdrop to the more gentle motions of the women. Their own steps were striking and bold, the force of a wave or a thundering waterfall. The man that danced behind Yuffie raised his face briefly to be sure that he kept pace with her, and Tifa gasped loudly.

"That's Vincent!" She hissed, elbowing Cloud in the ribs. "Looklooklook!" It was indeed Vincent, red eyes narrowed in concentration. Cloud stared for a moment, and leaned over to her ear.

"He's good." He whispered.

"Yeah!" Tifa marvelled, beaming as Vincent circled his partner with long, sweeping steps. She was amazed. "He looks so different in that… blue Wutaian thing!" She said admiringly. "You'd better look out, Cloud, you're not going to be the cute guy in AVALANCHE much longer!"

Cloud snorted.

Yuffie and Chekhov made one final leap and the dance was over. The crowd exploded with enthusiastic applause and loud catcalls of appreciation. Yuffie's expression remained stony until she straightened from her bow, and then she grinned widely at Tifa and pounced upon Vincent.

"That was fantastic! I had no idea you were so damn good!" She enthused, squeezing him tightly around the middle. "You have to come to Wutai for all our festivals! There's no way I'm dancing with Gorky any more!"

Vincent smiled a little despite himself. "I am glad I could remember it all." He said to the top of her head. He felt a hand land on his shoulder, and when he turned around, Tifa stood there, her wine coloured eyes bright like rubies.

"Vincent Valentine, you never told us you could dance or were dancing tonight or were Wutaian or--!!" She scolded with a grin so wide it must have been hurting her face. Yuffie slung her arm around Vincent's shoulders with some difficulty, her face practically creaking with happiness.

"Wasn't he great?" She demanded proudly.

"He was! That was the most fantastic thing I've ever—"

Cloud caught Vincent's eye over Tifa's head. In unison, they clapped their hands over the mouth of the girl closest to them, and steered them far, far away from each other.

Vincent tried to take Yuffie back to the car door, but a small troop of slum gangsters had annexed it. Rather than waste energy antagonising them, he chose to lead Yuffie over to one of the far rubbish heaps, where they could still see the bonfire. This time, they sat on the side of a fridge, legs dangling over the door as though they were primary school children.

Yuffie looked at Vincent. He hadn't gone back for his regular clothes after the dance, so he still wore the 'blue Wutaian thing' with its riot of pale blue and gold embroidery. He hair was still bound back in a queue, though several wisps had escaped and were hanging down in front of his serious eyes.

He looked too damn ordered to be Vincent. She reached up and tugged the tie out of his hair, making it fall forward in its usual disarray. When he looked up in surprise, she nodded in satisfaction. "Much better." Vincent tossed his head to clear his vision and watched his companion with a considering expression. She, oblivious or feigning it well, rested her head on his shoulder companionably.

"Two hours 'til dawn." She estimated, looking at the sky. "We have to leave tomorrow. Today."

She felt the muscles tense in his arm and in his shoulder. "You are leaving?"

"Yes. I didn't tell anyone because I wasn't sure I wanted to see how they'd react. I have to go back to Wutai tomorrow. Pick up where I left off." A soft sigh. "I think Dad wants to re-introduce me to a few of the local lords… or someone else. It was someone from Rocket Town last time I was there." A feeble snicker. "You think it was Cid? Grossness!"

"Indeed." Vincent said, his voice a little colder that it had been moments ago. Yuffie sat up.

"Vinnie? What's up?"

Vincent hesitated. He had assumed… perhaps wanted to believe… that after all they had been through, she might want to stay with him. But he realised with a little chill of understanding that she had her own life to return to. Like the rest of AVALANCHE. Except for him. He frowned slightly. What right had he to intrude on that peace? He looked at her and his face was still. "I will miss you." He told her. Simple and pure, as though it were absolute, undeniable truth. Which it was. Yuffie's eyes softened.

"I'll miss you too, Vincent."

Though it was Yuffie who first opened her arms, it was a mutual hug. Over her head, Vincent closed his eyes as though in pain. It was happening again. He resisted the urge to clutch her to him in desperation. Instead, he bowed his head over hers, his claw resting on her lower back. She didn't flinch from his touch, her arms encircling him tightly.

But eventually she did pull away. He let her go reluctantly, arms resisting the movement more than they would have bending backwards at the elbow. Her hands rested on the back of his neck, and she held him at arm's length for a while.

"You know what, Vinnie? I've just realised something."

"…what's that?"

"If I go back down there and see the others, I'm going to cry." He blinked at this flat statement, brows knitting in concern. "So I want you to do something for me."

"…what's that?"

Yuffie smiled thankfully. "I want you to give everyone messages for me. First off, tell Dad that I've gone ahead on Falla. As for the others… tell Tifa to tell him. Tell Cloud to open his damn eyes. Tell Barret to never ever leave Marlene again. Tell Red to get a girlfriend. Tell Reeve to get a life. Tell Cid he's an asshole. He'll get it."

Vincent nodded slowly. "I will tell them." He promised. His eyes caught hers for a few moments, questioning. Then he looked away. "And I… what do I tell myself when you're gone?"

Yuffie's hands moved to capture his face. "You tell yourself 'two thousand Gil an hour' for all those festivals I'm going to hire you out for." Vincent closed his eyes to hide the pain in them. Yuffie's thumbs stroked his cheeks gently. "I'm not finished." Her hands tugged his face down to be kissed thoroughly. Before he could stop it, his hand rose to tangle slender fingers through her hair, his face relaxing of its own blissful accord.

Yuffie broke the kiss too soon, resting her forehead against his own. "Never go back to the Shinra Mansion." She whispered. "I want you to travel the world all over again and find out where you really belong."

With you, always with you, part of Vincent's mind cried in anguish. "Yes." He said gruffly. Anything. He would do anything she asked of him.

He was startled enough by that revelation that he let her get away. Her thumbs stroked his face one last time, and her hands left his face. When he opened his eyes, she was gone.

A/N: Well, there we are. Maybe a little more mushy than we expect from Vincent, but hey, the guy's already broken down and kissed her twice before. I'm thinkin' we'd be seeing a teensy bit of an attitude change from our beloved Mr Valentine. Two more parts, unless I decide to combine them! Please review and tell me what you thought.